Key Points
- Cindy Valdez has been in education for more than two decades.
- She shares how her refugee students' traumas and stories changed her as a person and educator.
- Valdez says that in order for learning to occur, there needs to be trust.
Listen to the podcast
Pagprotekta at gabay ng isang guro sa mga batang refugee sa Australia
SBS Filipino
01/03/202311:58
“Teaching my refugee students English is not the first concern I have. It’s about their safety. Do they trust me? Do they feel safe in my classroom?”
Hundreds upon hundreds of children have gone through Cindy Valdez’s classroom during her 20+ years in education. With trust gained and safety assured, her students adapted and learned, and the way Valdez saw life and learning shifted and changed.
‘Everyone has something to offer’
Before beginning her career as an educator and President of the Association of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (ATESOL) NSW, Valdez was a migrant student new to Australia.
Cindy Valdez as a Valedictorian in Nursery, 1979 Credit: Cindy Valdez
"In the Philippines, physical activities weren't as encouraged then compared to academics, so I came here not knowing how to swim. We had swimming in high school and I remember there was a time that three of us in the water were migrants.
I remember hearing firsthand from the P.E. teacher 'They're Asians. They're not going to learn how to swim. Let's not bother.' It wasn't even so much the words, but the tone.
Valdez shares while the teacher assumed that they could only learn the bare minimum, an English teacher she had later on uplifted their class, looking at each student as being on the same level playing field.
"We called her Ms. G. She was my teacher in 11th grade. She did not dumb anything down for us. She knew how to challenge us and also support us at the same time.
It was because of her that as an educator, I maintained the notion that no person should ever be excluded from anything.
"That's at the forefront of what I do and my biggest why."
Valdez admits that her experience with Ms. G solidified in her the need to have all her eventual students succeed.
"I want everyone to experience success, no matter how small the achievement seems. What Ms. G meant to me...that grounded me."
Reliving the trauma
With K-12 and TESOL qualifications, Valdez was a practising educator in 2009-2010 when the first influx of refugees coming from South Africa settled in Australia.
"In the school I was working in, 45% of our students came from refugee backgrounds. It was a difficult time of transition where we didn't get as much support as schools do now.
"In the school I was working in, 45% of our students came from refugee backgrounds." Credit: Ahmed akacha from Pexels
Many of the students in her class were from war-torn Tanzania and Sudan.
"I remember kids sharing the most horrific, traumatising stories that I've ever heard. You go with the flow as you do, but I didn't realise I was reliving their trauma through them. I didn't know it then, but I had what was called vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue."
Once you hear their stories, something inside pushes you to do the best for your students and their families. You can't turn your back on that.
"As a migrant, I came here with my family. We had a plan. We knew English. Some migrants who come here have families; whereas, refugees could have come by boat, escaping last minute, rushing through cities being bombed, with nothing. Sometimes, it made me look at them and think - How did you survive? How are you here?"
"Sometimes, it made me look at them and think - How did you survive? How are you here?"" Credit: Ahmed akacha from Pexels
Questions Valdez had of their survival also brought about a new set of questions about learning.
"As a teacher, rather than asking why can't they do something or labelling them as not being capable..it was a change of mindset to How much trauma impacted your learning? What happened to you?"
S.T.A.R.S.
What happened to them continued to affect them despite leaving the turmoil and chaos of their previous homes.
"Like we assume that they should be happy now because they're here and they're getting support; but remember, in as much as they survived the war, they now have to survive the peace.
Cindy Valdez won at the inaugural PETAA Award for Excellence in Primary Teaching in 2022. Credit: Cindy Valdez
"For most of my refugee students, they would fight. You couldn't look at them the wrong way or raise your voice or have a certain tone because it would signal something bad."
Things that also signalled something bad for them were alarms and school bells.
School bells trigger stress and panic. We couldn't do unplanned fire drills. I've witnessed students run out to look for somewhere to hide or duck under their tables, so we changed the school bell to music.
"So as educators, we adhere to the . This means that before they can acquire the skills they need, like language and social, they have to feel safe and secure."
Ten steps back to move forward
When her students felt safe and secure, she was able to teach them the skills they needed; albeit, slowly.
"For example, sometimes their find motor skills aren't as developed. Some of my students did not learn how to write with a pencil and paper. They learned how to write with dirt or they would show me how they formed letters with sticks. Some didn't know how to count or read.
"For migrants, it would take us about 3-5 or 5-7 years to learn academic English. With refugees, you add three more years to that...so a minimum of 10 years.
Skills and trauma are varied; but I tell you, refugee kids and their families are resilient. We take ten steps back or slow things down, but it's still towards the same endpoint.
The endpoint is always towards adapting and finding their own sense of success.
"All I asked from my kids was for them to be kind and respectful. That's what I hoped for them.
"I have kids who have since become doctors and lawyers. My best story would have to be a South African student of mine whose transit country was Lebanon. She saw me in the city and she came running to me and thanked me for being hard on her. She has since studied law and does pro bono work for refugees. It's such a lovely story."
While many of her students continue to pay her care and generosity forward, Valdez herself persists in giving back to school communities in Australia and in different parts of the world.
"Whatever it is that you do, you want to leave a place, a person in a much better space than when you met them." Credit: Cindy Valdez
"With my kids, it was always How can I make myself better as a teacher? How do I show up to be my best version for them?"
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